


Embers

by laughingpineapple



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Banter, Established Relationship, Insofar as Coop allows it. More like freshly re-established relationship, M/M, Post-Canon, Supernatural Nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-23 20:28:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17087204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: This moment is beyond the fire, beyond jade green and curtains. There is still warmth.





	Embers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [teyla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teyla/gifts).



The flame crackled and waned until it folded into a lazy halo over the coals. Coop stared at the shadows growing inside the fireplace. There were days where minutes followed hours and days where hours followed seconds and he couldn't be sure of where today fell, but there was a point ahead of him in which the fireplace would be dark and cold. Unless this had happened before, then it was behind him and change remained illusory.

Albert stared at Coop. It took some wrangling of the mass of limbs and blankets they had built on the couch like a daring game of Jenga, but he managed to get a good look at the man and gauge the situation.

“That fire won't stoke itself.”

“I agree, Albert. It won't.”

“And what did they tell you in kindergarten about rhetorical statements?”

“Same as they told you, I assume. We grew up together, didn't we?”

“Insofar as Philly counts as kindergarten, you're not wrong.” He caressed the nape of Coop's neck. Whose memories are those, he would have liked to ask, but instead let his fingers linger on soft black hair. They got a shot at growing old together now and that would have to do. A handful of years. Better than none. “Now go toss some more wood in there before this drafty rat trap of a cabin plunges down to zero degrees Kelvin and time stops bothering you altogether.”

“I can't do that, Albert.”

“Mercury in Gatorade or something?”

“My arm. I can't feel it.”

Not the first time it happened - Albert knew better than to press for details and throw Coop back into that dreamy lull where he came up with all manners of creepy tales that didn't even add up, and if they ever happened, they happened to someone else, in other beds, working other jobs. Coop's arm was indeed numb, Albert confirmed to himself as he picked it up from over his shoulder and examined it. All he could do was run his hands along it, admiring the veins and blemishes that made it real, real part of the real body sitting next to him. In a rush of affection that he thought had gone extinct, crushed by two glaciations, he grabbed Coop's hand and placed a kiss on his knuckles. Even if he couldn't feel it, he could see it, and the small smile Albert got in return left his heart wide open and needing.

“So what's your heating plan?”

“As you know, Albert, meditation can have a tremendous power on the body. An experienced practitioner has been shown to be able to generate marked differences in blood flow to his or her entire brain,” he said, meeting Albert's eyes, waiting for the moment he would drop the politeness for Cooper's sake and give him a good, sharp stare like in the old times. They meant a lot to him. Always had. They meant glimpsing at a flash of Albert's full and passionate being, they meant a beacon back to the small comforts of rational shores no matter how far he'd sailed into dark open seas. “At the same time, certain areas of the brain become more active, specifically those that control attention and autonomic functions like blood pressure and metabolism… ah, there you are with the frown. Have you grown more patient with age, my dearest friend? I was thinking I would reach the bibliography before getting a rise out of you.” He reached to kiss him, if for no reason other than he could, first on the nose then on the lips, and for a moment all was safe and fair. “Actually, I was thinking we could get to bed early and cling to each other's body under a gratifying amount of blankets.”

“Hold that thought.”

 

With a sigh, Albert left him to kneel in front of the fireplace, studying it with a furrowed brow.

“You never told me you knew how to keep a fire going!” chirped Coop.

“Can't be too hard if literal cavemen could do it. I'm looking it up on the internet.” Albert raised his phone so Coop could see it from the couch. Having read up on the broad theory, he went on to add a small log, positioning it so it would have enough air but not too much, blow on the coals and slowly nurse their dying fire back to good health.

“There. Done. You're impossible, you know that.”

“Albert, do you mean it? Say it isn't true…”

“What? If this is some Peter Pan nonsense - I do believe in fairies, I do, I do, better now? Please don't disappear again.”

Coop shook his head. He leaned on his good hand and got up to join Albert, wrapping him in a one-armed hug which made Albert turn around and hold him tight, burying his face in the rough wool of Coop's sweater.

“You couldn't tell? Really? You of all people, at that?”

“I couldn't see your face. I can still read your face.”

“As opposed to?”

 

Dale couldn't answer. The flames danced before him, reminding him that he had walked with fire and gotten burnt to ashes and put himself together somehow, missing some pieces, mixing up others, barely enough to limp back and tell the tale. He clung to Albert. 

It took until they were safely wrapped under the blankets and around each other, safe for now against the winter, safe for now against the passing of time, working around Albert's cold feet and Dale's lazy arm, that the latter went back to that talk.

“...as opposed to the signs.”

“You know I don't actually have a sarcasm quota to meet, right? You don't need to serve me these opportunities on a silver platter. Please meet me half way with the weirdness, I promise my best effort to play nice?” He kissed Coop's forehead. “You have the keenest mind I've ever known, Coop. Not when you show off, that's insufferable and you know it. Where it matters.” 

“I don't know how else to call them. I could see signs, on people. Liars got a light shone upon them. Lines connected two lovers in a room. Red curtains parted over individuals whom I strain to classify as anything other than 'cursed’. By the time I found out that they weren't commonplace, Albert, I knew better than to speak up.”

“Instead, you showed off,” said Albert who had lived through many a display of Dale Cooper's amazing powers of deduction. It's body language, he said. All in the hands, he said. The nerve, Albert would say. But he felt his anger at this enduring lie disperse before it even had to time to build up. He would have gotten angry at a different man than the one curled up in bed beside him, anyway. 

“Wouldn't you have?”

“I can't believe this.” What was worse, after a life in Blue Rose he couldn't even blame him.

“You have believed worse.”

“...I have believed worse.”

And he would still follow Coop's lead, like he always had when it mattered, when this strange hot mess of a man was bathed in the light of other worlds and showed Albert new paths toward love and compassion. If Cooper had to give up this too, if he had to play catch up with the common man for once and learn from scratch how to read the intent behind people's words, Albert would be the one to meet him half way and hold his hand. Besides, as far as retirement plans for sixty-year-old codgers went, this was a better hobby than most. It beat golf, for one. He brushed Coop's limp arm, which, according to five contradictory anecdotes Coop had shared in the past weeks, would at least fix itself in three days or so. They would still be there, sitting by the fire. Tugging at each other in opposite directions, never letting go again.

 


End file.
